


Anything Would Be Better

by AstariaSnow



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Depression, Desperation, Disregard for own life, Recklessness, Retconned Timeline, Yellow Yard (Homestuck)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 13:34:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29333142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstariaSnow/pseuds/AstariaSnow
Summary: Jade find herself more alone than she's ever been. In a fit of self destructive desperation, she goes to the only being left who might be able to help her.
Kudos: 2





	Anything Would Be Better

The book you’re reading is… Interesting. It’s one of Rose’s, and it’s about as heavy handed as you would expect from her. It’s nice. You haven’t talked to Rose in two months, and you won’t be able to talk to her for 34 more. Her books will have to do, tiding you over with little memories until you can finally meet up with her again.

LOWAS floats above the coffee table beside you. John, your brother, you have a brother now, went down there with Dave and Nanna to get some things. Nanna went down there to grab some cooking supplies. You’re pretty sure John and Dave are about to come back with John’s entire gaming setup. You guess you’ll take mercy on them and set it up on the ship when they get back, otherwise it’s going to take five hours at the very least.

You flip the page before you realize the entire last one went in through your eyes and flew out your ears with you retaining none of it. Sticking out your tongue, you flip the page back and find the line where you zoned out.

A crack echoes through the room and you jump up. What was that? Could one of the consorts have dropped something near you? Is everything okay?

Your eyes and ears are drawn toward LOWAS. Horror grips you. You lunge for the planet, you can hold it together long enough to get them off, you know you can.

A blast like a grenade goes off in your face. The wall meets your back and the air escapes your lungs, seizing as you try desperately to feel them, your brother, your best friend, your grandmother.

Nothing.

They’re gone.

Your name is Jade Harley and you are all alone.

~~\---~~

You think this dungeon was meant for two players. Space is intertwined with the glyphs on the walls, twisted into new shapes and designs. If you didn’t know better, it looks like Light is on the walls beside Space.

It doesn’t matter anymore.

Underlings don’t make it past your line of sight. You are the Witch of Space and you rip them to grist with a flick of your thoughts. A shotgun hangs at your hip, with a rifle matching on your back. They came in a pair, with some impressive title to match. You don’t remember the title, not because you forgot, but because it wasn’t important. All you remember is that these guns have the highest damage rate of any weapon you could alchemize.

A chamber opens up around you. In the middle stands a behemoth, towering over you.

It doesn’t matter anymore.

The rifle finds its way into your hand. Sighting down the barrel is pointless. You bring it to your shoulder one handed and send a phosphorus round you made into the giant’s head.

The floor is covered in grist. Every color and type. The only stuff you pick up is on your way from the entrance to the door the giant was guarding.

You teleport another round into the chamber as you sling the rifle across your back. The door has some puzzle on it, and now you’re certain, Light stares back at you, accusing. You couldn’t save her friends, and now in two years’ time you’ll have to walk off this ship alone and tell her you got her best friend, her brother, her cat killed.

You don’t have time for this stupid useless door. It won’t budge with your space powers, probably to force any player to not cheat.

Two shotgun rounds with the power of warship cannons take it out no problem.

You teleport down the hall, distance doesn’t mean much to you anymore, with one exception.

The cavern in front of you is lined with crystals the size of school busses. Light plays on them beautifully, pastel rainbows lighting every surface with an enchanting glow.

It doesn’t matter anymore.

The platform out to the center of the pit is vestigial. You fly up above the pit, shotgun still in hand and reloaded.

“Echidna!”

And now you wait.

Something stirs beneath you, something huge. Within a moment, you are face to face with the biggest snake in the universe.

**What do you want, Witch?**

The words ring in your skull, the light seeming to change around you. This is one of the most powerful beings in the Game.

It doesn’t matter anymore.

“Bring them back! Bring them all back!” The words rip up your throat on the way out, cold tears running into the well wore riverbeds on your face.

Echidna looks at you.

**No.**

“Do it! I know you can! You’re a Denizen!”

**Child, I have one role. I cannot revive players and sprites.**

“Then what’s the point of you?!”

**I can offer a choice.**

You stop, a choice, what choice? You have no options left.

“What choice?”

Echidna seems to like that you aren’t shouting, and you’ve lowered the shotgun. You suppose talking to a slightly unhinged goddess with a shotgun meant to kill you shoved in your face must be distracting even for Denizens.

**You may go join your fellow players, or I can end you here and you can join the bubbles as a ghost.**

That? That’s the choice?

“What do you mean I can ‘join my fellow players’? I’m stuck here.”

**Choose, and I will facilitate your choice.**

“Fine! Fine! I want to join the others! I’m so sick and tired of being alone.”

Echidna smiles, or at least as close to a smile as a snake lady monster can get. It’s more than a little terrifying.

**Space alone cannot cross the distance between you. Space and their sibling aspect Time, however, can do many impossible things together.**

“But, Dave’s dead. My Dave is DEAD! He can’t help me if you can’t bring him back!” You’re seething, how is this useful when the only person who could help you is dead along with your family?

**It does not require a God to wield an aspect. Paradox Space is made of the twelve, and you who walk it use each. You command Space, that does not mean you cannot ask Time for help with the right tool.**

“What tool…” You stop. Dave was time traveling all over the place before he went godtier. But he couldn’t do it by himself, he had to use…

**My price, when you reunite with the Heir, keep him alive. Go, Child.**

With that, Echidna sunk back into the pit.

Her price was impossible, John was dead. But that didn’t matter. You knew what you needed now.

You pop into space in front of the alchemiter. The room is one of the only ones you’ve been keeping in use, mostly to make food. You open the catalogue of your known items with shaking hands, going to Dave’s tab and scrolling down until you see them. The grist cost is huge, he wasn’t supposed to need replacements. That doesn’t matter. You alchemize his turntables and take them.

The four remaining planets are in your inventory. As is everything else you care to take. You’ve lived on the Yellow Yard for one entire year, but you’ve never bothered to make it a home. Your home died when you found yourself alone, again. There is nothing you want beyond the planets.

You pull out Dave’s tables. The hands you lay on them shake something terrible. This has to work, or at least if it doesn’t it could do the service of ending your misery here and now. Echidna implied you’d reach the dream bubbles if you died. That was better than here. No matter how this ends up, your situation could only improve.

You take a deep breath and spin the tables.

With a pop, you’re gone.


End file.
